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2D II – ARIANNE GOR

These are the final pieces for my Que Sera Sera project. Overall, this project was enjoyable for me to see what I could make out of symbols and textures and colour to communicate my initials, AG. What I found the hardest was visualising original ways to communicate the jobs I wanted to portray, which is why I went through so many thumbnails and ideas. I’ve never done typography before so it was a new challenge to tackle.

2D II – ARIANNE GOR

Guardians is a look into the lamp posts of Bukit Batok’s nature parks and how I have perceived them. It follows the narrative of my own journey over the duration of one day from dusk to dawn as I associate different lamp posts with different times of the day. And according to their times (e.g the dawn guardian, the noon guardian, the twilight guardian) they each portray personalities that are similar to those times of the day. It follows like a story of how I have encountered each guardian and how each has revealed to me the characteristics of nature and time.

2D II ZINE – Process

2D II,  ZINE PROCESS

Assigned Location: Bukit Batok

After my initial research of the area of Bukit Batok, I narrowed it down to the neighbourhood’s nature parks. And within those nature parks, I picked the topic of lamp-posts to investigate and display in my final zine. 

The process has been a very educational one; I’ve learned so many things from using InDesign to developing an actual product and figuring out what would look best visually to convey my message. 


Learning InDesign – –

One of the biggest areas in my process documentation was learning InDesign itself as a software. I have had no prior knowledge or use of the application and it was a really useful experience to understand what terms like ‘bleed’ and ‘slug’ were. I was taught to format a product with the end result in mind, and having to think about the printing helped in the process of construction my zine.

Specifications for the A5 zine document.

Crafting the Zine – –

I started the process of creating a zine with the idea of ‘lamp posts of Bukit Batok’. I knew that I wanted to do illustration in my zine, rather than use photographs, so I just used my photos as reference and created illustrations based on them. At first, I found it extremely hard to figure out what colours to use. Admittedly, I hadn’t planned out the actual narrative/storyline to my zine, I only knew that I wanted to characterise and bring the lamp posts that I saw so often to life. However, the more I worked on the zine, the more I started to figure out what I wanted to do.

In the end, I would create a narrative with dawnnoon, and twilight and attribute these times in the day to different ‘guardians’ – that is, the lamp posts. I ended up with 15 total versions of my zine, from start to finish as I tried to figure out what I wanted to show visually. Below is the progression of my zine from start to finish in screenshots.

The first draft of the cover page of my zine.
The second draft of my cover.

I knew that the illustration above was one that I wanted to keep – it had good composition and it showed that I wanted to talk about lamp posts in Bukit Batok’s environment. However, I was frustrated with the colours as well as the font – consulting with Shirley showed me that the fonts you use are very important to the tone that you want to convey. And at this point, the font was too serious. I didn’t want a goofy, silly font that was child-like, but I still wanted to show that I was telling a story rather than an information pamphlet.

Changed the colours on the previous illustration.

The first thing I did to try and fix the problem was change the colours of the illustration so that they were more cohesive and aesthetically pleasing. I liked this illustration much better than the one before and this is the final one I would use for my zine’s cover page. Then I went on to experiment and play around with different fonts that would help convey my message better (and not be so serious!) Below is the final cover page, where I made the font more light-hearted and ‘story-like’ (if you will) and fit it into the page so that it would look cohesive as an entire layout. I am quite pleased with this cover and prefer it enormously over my two earlier versions.

Final zine cover layout.
The Rest of the Zine – –

After jumping over the tough hurdle of the zine cover, I moved onto the rest of the zine. Like I mentioned before, I want to convey a story that takes us from dawn to noon to twilight and associate different lamp posts with these timings (e.g. the dawn lamp post would be shy and quiet, like the dawn as an entity itself). Dawn was relatively easy to do; it was harder later on to craft the noon spread and the twilight spread.

The first spread.
The second spread.

Above is the final end look of the second spread in my zine. It was hard at first to figure out what I wanted to do with this page, because I wanted to use this illustration:

But the illustration itself would obviously not cover the entire spread. I needed to think about what I wanted to do with the spread, so then I tried to balance out one area with empty space and the other with more complicated designs and patterns. Heavy on one side, and light on the other. Below is my process of trying to figure out the composition for the spread. 

After I was satisfied with the composition, I tried to follow the rule of thirds with placement of the texts and kept them from being right in the centre or the middle of the spread. This was to provide more visual interest. I like the contrast between the empty right side and the heavier left side.

The final spread.

Above is the final spread – the ‘twilight’ guardian. So as I reached the end of the zine, I tried to progress it throughout the timings of a single day; dawn to dusk. For this spread, I had some troubles with choosing colour. Initially, I was going to use this image:

But obviously, the style of the above illustration doesn’t match the other two spreads or the cover page. So I went back to the reference photo used:

And created a new illustration that would keep the consistency across the zine. The final illustration for the twilight spread has a common colour scheme of warm browns and oranges and tries to communicate a sense of dusk/twilight. 

I had fixed up the odd green/blue/yellow colour scheme and replaced it with one that would match better with the rest of the zine. But I then had issues with adjusting the colours of the text. 

 

As you can see above, the word ‘twilight’ is different – one is yellow, the other is blue. I was struggling between which one would give more visual interest. In the end, I decided on blue because it would match the blue of the previous noon spread and also makes the word stand out.


Learning Points + Takeaways – –

This entire project has taught me many things, from softwares to composition and thinking about end products. One of the biggest things that I had to think about was both colour and composition. Using different elements of design like the rule of thirds and so on really helped me create a zine that would be more interesting to look at. For example, in the beginning I would split up the composition of the spreads down the middle because of the left and right pages, but then after consultations, I realised that I could bring images across the middle divide to create the rule of thirds and so on. Thinking about consistency across a product is also an interesting aspect of this project. Usually when I create artwork or paint, I only have to think about a single frame on a page. In a zine, not only do I have to think about individual spreads, but also about how they transition from each other and the consistency across the entire document. I enjoyed this project very much and it represents learning milestones in my design career.

 

 

 

Experimental Binding

BOOK BINDING

Assembling and securing written/printed pages within a cover.

We will investigate 3x types of experimental book binding.

  1. Accordion Binding
  2. Stab Binding
  3. Saddle-stitch Binding

Accordion Binding

 


Stab Binding

What is Stab Binding?

  1. Using an awl/sharp object, stab holes along the edge of the book in a straight line, and then sew thread through the holes to bind and decorate the book.
  2. There are many types, one of which is the ever-popular contemporary Japanese Stab Binding technique (Yotsume Toji). It was practiced during the Edo period in Japan.
  3. Low cost, does not involve many tools, expensive materials or machinery.

EXAMPLES

TUTORIAL/DEMO


Saddle-Stitch Binding

What is Saddle-Stitch Binding?

Saddle Stitching refers to a very popular book binding method in which folded sheets are gathered together one inside the other and then stapled through the fold line with wire staples.  The staples pass through the folded crease from the outside and are clinched between the centermost pages.  Two staples are commonly used but larger books may require more staples along the spine.

Benefits

  • It is the least expensive out of all binding options
  • Fast
  • Widely available
  • Can be made with heavier weight cover or self cover books
  • (Self Cover means the cover is the same weight of paper as the interior pages)
  • Wide range of sizes

Examples

Using thread
Using staples

2D II ZINE: Likeable Layouts

During my research, I was looking at different Zine layouts that caught my eye and compiled 5 of the best ones here, stating what I like best about them.


one

I like this Zine layout because of the strict colour scheme. Pink and mint green work uncannily well together and the layout is definitely not standard – a lot of overlapping of both text and photos makes it very interesting to look at. Even the photos have been edited to match the colour scheme. Though I appreciate this layout for its aesthetics, I’m not sure about how functional and effective it is for actually understanding the text. However, I admire its avant-garde style, it makes it quite original.


two

I like this layout because of the black and white. I usually tend to like darker backgrounds with lighter text. I really like how abstract the background is – it simply looks good, and it reminds you of the stars. I think it’s important to have the design remind you of what the zine’s contents are – if this zine is about stargazing, it does its job well. I also like the singular box in the centre; there is no need for visual hierarchy because there is only one thing you’re supposed to be looking at. The appreciation for simplicity is very obvious in this design.


three

This zine masters a concept that is hard to execute – variety. Zines are aesthetically pleasing when they follow similar layouts on each spread, with the same colour scheme – it looks well composed and very coherent. Variety is important too however, if you want to saturate your reader’s mind with everything you want to talk about (I think this is very valuable for travel zines). This zine pulls off everything from a two-page spread, combines both illustration AND photography, and uses multiple styles of layouts. Each page is a new color scheme, theme, and layout that makes you excited to turn to the next spread.


four

This zine makes good use of geometry. In addition to the colour scheme, you can see cohesion throughout because of the simple use of shapes and line. The colourful shapes against the black and white background also serve to highlight the important aspects of each page, so one doesn’t get lost in the middle of all the geometry The font is also very simplistic, so that all the elements don’t jumble and fall onto one another – complicated, but easy at the same time.


 five

For this zine, I like it a lot because of how beautiful the illustration is. The colours of text and the drawings are also kept simple to make sure the photographs are appreciated, but the illustration is gorgeous – and links the pages too! Birds are an obvious recurring motif throughout the zine and they add a special original touch. It makes me want to illustrate in my zine too.

2D – Que Sera Sera FINAL

These are the final pieces for my Que Sera Sera project.


FISHERMAN

fisherman2

I used the symbols of the boats to help contextualise the fact this is in fact, a fishing environment at night, and the water ripples help separate the water from the air. I used basic symbols for the fish without going into too much detail – the pattern of the lines on the net would help fill in the detail for this piece. The hook also serves a dual function as the moon – just to add a little quirkiness to the night scene.


ASTRONAUT

astronaut2

The G is the planet that rocket A is landing on – I followed the bright colours of some of my research photos to make the shapes stand out against the dark space background. Though not the same colour, they’re still under the category of warm colours and so I grouped them together that way. Texturing of the rocks showed the bumpy nature of asteroids and planetary shapes, while the rocket remained smooth and unmarked – manmade. I also made the texture of the background star-speckled, but blurry. I thought it would be nice to have motion in the background and give the impression of being ‘suspended’ in space in contrast with the moving planets and orbital nature of rocks, which I hear is often what space travel is like. I think the colours used and simple textures communicate a children’s book vibe, which is what I was going for.


ARCHITECT

 

architect2

Blueprint texturing is often a faint grid in the background, so I started out with that first. Then making the perspective more intense than my initial pencil sketch, I included faint perspective lines to make it look more ‘sketchy’, like an architect had just spent his time working and drawing over the print. I also used lighter sections to make the A and the G stand out agains the blue, and tried to make it look chalky and written – hence the notes and the different scribbles that I imagine an architect would make (from what I’ve seen from my research). The perspective here took a long time to get right, because sometimes my sizing and my angle for the two different letters would look odd together. I think the blue and the white work well together to communicate a blueprint as well as to make it look professional.


HERPETOLOGIST

herpetologist-copy

Out of all my pieces, I feel like this is the most artistic and vintage-style. I started the watercolour painting and then scanned it into the computer. Using watercolour as a medium helped set the paper-texture that I was going for; I painted first with browns and yellows and then enhanced this texture using photos of papers and overlaying them over the painting. The snakes stand out with the use of colours like red and green – warm and bright agains the pale yellow to contrast the two. I also included scribbles and writing to make it look like a diagram of an actual species of snake.


Overall, this project was enjoyable for me to see what I could make out of symbols and textures and colour to communicate my initials, AG. What I found the hardest was visualising original ways to communicate the jobs I wanted to portray, which is why I went through so many thumbnails and ideas. I’ve never done typography before so it was a new challenge to tackle.

2D – Que Sera Sera PROCESS

After all the initial research that went into my jobs, I started the visualisation of my final pieces. Like I said before, I went through many revisions of different jobs (e.g I thought about criminals but I ended up scratching that idea) but there are a lot of thumbnail sketches of possible compositions that I came up with.

Some of the different thumbnails I did are here  below:

img_4603 img_4604 img_4605

I focused a lot on the fisherman job, because it was the one I was most excited about, but I also did preliminary sketches of possible ways I wanted other jobs to look too. Especially for herpetology, I sketched out snakes in many different ways to make the A and the G look very prominent. I also worked on the composition for the astronaut; I wanted the G to be the planet and the A to be a rocket (since A is easier to manipulate into a rocket than G is). Consulting with Shirley reinforced my idea: she like the contrast of colour, shape, while all still under the umbrella of the same space-theme.

img_4601 img_4602 img_4606img_4607

For two of the jobs, I started out doing traditional mediums of pencil and watercolour first (and some marker) to see what they would look like. I did this for the architect and for the herpetologist because I thought that both of these jobs were especially close to the use of traditional mediums.

Herpetology – because like my research showed,  there’s a sepia/vintage like vibe to it. I imagine coffee stains and other debris as a herpetologist works on the diagrams of the animals he studies. So I tried to emulate that with my own watercolour painting.

img_4608

I will later digitalise this so that it can make for a clean print.

Architect – you often imagine an architect drawing and sketching out buildings. Though I know that perspective is a very inaccurate tool in drawing and architects don’t use it, I decided to include perspective to give it more of an ‘artistic flair’. But I felt that the pencil drawing still remained a little plain and messy, so I eventually will change the medium to digital and use the colours of white and blue like blueprints.

img_4609

As for the other two, I started out digitally and continued to just work on them digitally. A process screenshot for the astronaut can be seen below:

screen-shot-2017-02-09-at-10-00-24-pm

 

2D – Que Sera Sera RESEARCH

The prompt for this project was to portray our names (whether our full name, real name, nick name, initials, what have you) in relation to a future job ambition.

I wanted to use my initials ‘A.G.’ so I explored that, with the jobs that I had in mind. Initially, I wanted to be a zoologist, a criminal, a fisherman, and an astronomer, but eventually as I started sketching out and planning the way my deliverables would look, I ended up with these 4 jobs as the finals:

  1. Fisherman
  2. Astronaut
  3. Herpetologist
  4. Architect

For all of these jobs, I will use only AG and try and explore different ways that I can incorporate it into the job-type to see if it can be expanded to be used as an actual font.


RESEARCH

First of all, I started out researching the type of visual aids that are related to the jobs that I picked.

Fishermen are often associated with nets and fish (obviously!) and so I thought it would be best to look at photos of nets and see what kind of ideas I could come up with.

2011-11-21-12-22-311

Bozo fisherman using a net on the River Niger, Mopti, Mali
Bozo fisherman using a net on the River Niger, Mopti, Mali

Often with these photos of fishermen, there isn’t much in the background except the sky and the water. I thought this contrast in detail (the cluttered texturing of the net vs the clear and vast sky) could be an important part of my composition. Symbols of the boats would also help.

Astronauts are obviously associated with space, planets, asteroids, and rockets. Since planets and asteroids come in different shapes, I thought maybe I could use these to create the letters “A, G”. I came across cute clipart/cartoon pictures of astronauts on the internet and liked the way they looked.

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For this one, I especially like the colours of yellow and red for the planet and the rocket. They work well together to stand out against the dark background.

Herpetologists are experts in the study of reptiles and snakes. I actually initially wanted to do something with snakes because I am a big fan of some artists on instagram that do insane art with snakes. (e.g  @christinamrozikart).

screen-shot-2017-02-12-at-5-50-53-pm

I think snakes are a fun, organic way to make letters, and I was into the idea of making a cursive font in the midst of all the other blockish fonts I was visualising. Herpetologist’s diagrams are also often pictured on sepia-type backgrounds – a kind of vintage scientist vibe that I wanted to capture.

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Architects work with blueprints. I like the look of a strictly white and blue colourscheme, with all the little lines and details in places that outline a building. I looked at a few blueprints (like the ones below) to give me some reference for my own piece.

architecture-blueprints-3d-ideas-6 e89739324c81c7f4885796eb6f4683be white-house-blue-print